Making Your Own Homemade Butter

Have you ever been curious about making your own butter? If you've made it before you know it's pretty easy and if you haven't you're in the right place! I've broken it down into easy picture directions. The best thing about making your own butter is you can add flavors like cinnamon and honey or garlic and herbs. Follow these easy steps and you'll have your own fresh butter!

Start with an empty glass jar and a container of heavy whipping cream, as you can see I used my local store brand. I let my heavy cream sit for tweleve hours at room temperature before starting. I suggest letting it sit out over night and making it in the morning. The glass jar I used was an empty applesauce jar cleaned well and dried.

The next step is to pour your room temperature cream into your empty glass jar and make sure the lid is on tight! You don't want heavy whipping cream splashing all over your kitchen!

Start shaking and soon the jar is coated with the cream. Shake about one shake per second for two to three minutes. If you have kids this would be a good time to let them help shake it up!

After the shaking is done you are left with a jar of butter and buttermilk which will look like this.

Pour off the buttermilk from the butter. Don't throw this away though! You can use it for making buttermilk biscuits or pancakes!

Now it's time to rinse your butter with cold water. Pour the water into your jar covering the butter and shake for a half a minute or so. Drain off the extra water like you did with the buttermilk and throw away. I rinsed mine twice.

This is what you end up with at the end of the process. After you get the butter into your bowl you can add your salt or any other kind of herbs or mix in's to make this taste how you like. You can also get a bit more water out of it while you're moving the butter from the jar to the bowl.

I stored my butter in a small plastic container with a lid I had laying around. Your butter is now ready to eat on your favorite bread. This butter tastes so good you'll want to make it again and again!

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Exploring Florida--Sweetwater Wetlands Park

Located in Gainesville, FL, Sweetwater Wetlands park is a unique ecosystem where the alligators, horses and buffalo's roam. The boardwalks and trails get you up close and personal with some of Florida's amazing wildlife. Some of the animals you might encounter include turtles, alligators, plenty of birds and if you are lucky enough you'll get to see some of the wild horses or buffalo.

On our visit to the park we were blessed to see a group of five horses grazing alongside the trail. They didn't pay us any attention as we made our way past them. I was able to take plenty of pictures of them as we strolled down the trail. We didn't get to see any of the buffalo's on our visit but maybe next time!

Sweetwater Wetlands park's trails are handicap accessible and well marked. They do ask you to remain on the trails and boardwalks at all times for your safety! Bring plenty of sunscreen with you and water as the park is large and there isn't much shade. They do have a few pavilions where you can stop and rest though. Bathrooms are located next to the parking lot so make sure you go before walking the trails!

The cost to get in the park is $5 per car and you should bring exact change since you pay by honor box. Some things to keep in mind are pets are not allowed at the park for their safety. Also bicycles, drones and fishing are also prohibited. The address to the park is 325 SW Williston Road, Gainesville, Fl 32601. Sweetwater Wetlands Park is open seven days a week, including holidays. Hours are 7 a.m. to Sunset. Remember to take only pictures and leave only footprints!

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Fishing And Finding Trash!

This weekend I was doing a little fishing from shore in the Gulf of Mexico here in Florida. I was standing on big rock trying to keep my line out of the oysters that were around. I just happened to look down and I saw a part of a fishing reel in the water. Well when you see reel you think line and I didn't want all that line to get in the water and hurt our wildlife. I reached on down and pulled it out of the drink and discovered it was a Penn reel that was broken but full of line. I tossed it on shore to throw away later.

I took a little break from fishing and decided to walk around the shoreline looking for any other trash I could find. It didn't take long before I collected a old bent jig head and bunch of fishing line. It really only took me a few minutes of my time and I was surprised by how much line I found. I was in a public fishing place and the state does have garbage cans there. I went ahead and took the bundle of line and the old reel and tossed them in the garbage.

After picking up the trash I decided I would do a little more fishing. I didn't take long though before I found some more fishing trash! Right in the water on the edge was a fake shrimp jig with treble hooks that looked very realistic. This kind of thing would be horrible for a bird to eat thinking it was a real snack. I also found some metal fishing leader. These items also made it into the trash can!

I didn't set out that day with the intention of picking up trash from our fishing spot. It just kinda happened organically because there was stuff around and I knew it shouldn't be there. I was raised with the saying "Take only pictures, leave only footprints". That's a motto that I follow and teach my daughter. After all this our only planet. These are our beautiful waters and wonderful creatures. It's our trash and we need to keep our world clean.

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